TL; DR: Hypotheses Validation, Measuring Productivity—Food for Agile Thought #291
Welcome to the 291st edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 31,152 peers. This week, we delve into hypotheses validation, and we shine a light on why it is often hard to have an authentic conversation and what you can do about it. We also stress the importance of modeling and measuring culture and analyze critical problems at the leadership level of organizations that result in a 70 % failure rate of transformations.
We then wonder why so many product managers want to create strategies while we derive all the signals for further product growth from the operational work in the trenches. We appreciate a new ebook on dealing with difficult stakeholders and critical situations, and we learn a simple approach to measuring team productivity: Don’t touch velocity!
Lastly, we learn that Gitlab identified a new DevOps maturity model.
Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue #290?
🗞 Shall I notify you about articles like this one? Awesome! You can sign up here for the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter and join 31,000-plus other subscribers.
🎓 Join Stefan in one of his upcoming Professional Scrum training classes!
Join more than 185 peers from May 27-29, 2021, for the Virtual Agile Camp Berlin 2021, a live virtual Barcamp using open space technology principles and practices.
🏆 The Tip of the Week: Hypotheses Validation
(via Strategyzer): Business Testing: Is your Hypothesis Really Validated?
David J Bland provides a helping hand to innovators and entrepreneurs to figure out if their hypotheses validation is working.
➿ Agile & Scrum
(via Medium): 📺 Authentic Conversations and the Art of Feedbacking
In this short video, Takeshi Yoshida shines a light on why it is often hard to have an authentic conversation and what you can do about it.
, and : Westrum's Organizational Model in Technology Organizations
In this excerpt from ‘Accelerate: the Science of Lean Software and DevOps,’ Gene Kim, Nicole Forsgren, and Jez Humble stress the importance of modeling and measuring culture.
(via Harvard Business Review): How Leaders Get in the Way of Organizational Change
Ron Carucci delves into the critical problems at the leadership level of organizations that result in a 70 % failure rate of transformations.
🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM I Certificate: June 1-2, 2021
Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this official Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master training class, leading to and including the industry-recognized PSM I certification. The training is designed as a live virtual class from 9:00 am to 5:30 pm CEST and will be offered in English.
Learn more: 🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM I Certificate: June 1-2, 2021.
Kundenstimmen: “The class with Stefan was very well structured, delivering a helpful hands-on approach to all the Scrum basics. He managed to cover participants with different levels of expertise and from various fields easily and delivered knew knowledge and value to all of them from my point of view. The culture during these four days was excellent, so that everyone felt capable to speak up. Very much worth the invested time and money!” (Link.)
👉 From time to time, we can offer last-minute seats for training classes at cost to individuals who do not have access to a corporate training budget. If you like to be notified about these opportunities, please register here.
🎯 Product
: Why does everyone want to do strategy?
Linda Zhang wonders why so many product managers want to create strategies while we derive all the signals for further product growth from the operational work in the trenches.
(via mixpanel): Upsides to unshipping: The art of removing features and products
Neil Rahilly, Fareed Mosavat, and Casey Winters share their learnings on the benefits of removing features and when to favor this approach to creating more value.
(via productboard): Skills & tactics for managing challenging stakeholders
productboard published a new ebook on how to deal with difficult stakeholders and critical situations.
📯 Three Wide-Spread Product Owner Failures in 6:09 Minutes—Making Your Scrum Work #5
There are plenty of Product Owner failures. Given that Scrum is a framework with a precise and concise yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone.
Explore with me three widespread examples of how Product Owners fail their team in three short video clips, totaling 6 minutes and 9 seconds.
Learn more: Three Wide-Spread Product Owner Failures in 6:09 Minutes—Making Your Scrum Work #5.
🛠 Tools & Measuring
: Measuring Productivity
Ron Lichty’s approach to measuring team productivity is simple—don’t touch velocity—and suggests alternatives.
(via GitLab): GitLab's 2021 Survey uncovers a new DevOps maturity model
As a result of its latest survey with 4,000-plus participants, GitLab identified a new DevOps maturity model.
📅 Scrum Training & Event Schedule
You can secure your seat for Scrum training classes, workshops, and meetups directly by following the corresponding link in the table below:
See all upcoming classes here.
You can book your seat for the training directly by following the corresponding links to the ticket shop. If the procurement process of your organization requires a different purchasing process, please contact Berlin Product People GmbH directly.
📺 Join 2,700-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel:
- 🆕 Scrum Guide 2020: Eight Remarkable Changes — Hands-on Agile #28.
- Remote Agile (1) Replay: Practices and Tools for Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, and Product Owners.
- Scrum Sprint Retrospective Anti-Patterns.
✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn more about Hypotheses Validation — Join the 9,000-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community
I invite you to join the “Hands-on Agile” Slack Community and enjoy the benefits of a fast-growing, vibrant community of agile practitioners from around the world.
If you like to join all you have to do now is provide your credentials via this Google form, and I will sign you up. By the way, it’s free.